Who's Who in the CBU 2008

Name: Regie Rigby

Regie is a strange, almost ethereal creature. Who can plumb the hidden mysteries of his dark and murky past - a past which contains a terrible secret. A secret that taught him that with great power comes great responsibility, that criminals are a cowardly superstitious lot and just who exactly knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men.

By day, he assumes the appearance of a mild mannered teacher, bringing the joy of literature and the English Language to classes of enthralled and enthusiastic students. But by night?

By night he goes home and writes lesson plans. Sorry. That's as interesting as he gets. Really.

The rumours about rooftop struggles with underworld uberfiends, the gossip about the hidden cave filled with hi-tec equipment and the suggestion that his car might be fitted with turbo lasers are all nonsense.

When he's not teaching he reads comics. Sometimes he combines the two activities. When he's not doing that he's either playing computer games or asleep.

A Beautiful Sunset, I Hope

By Regie Rigby

Yes, I’m late again. Sorry.

Still, it’s kind of a week for things that are a bit late. I’ve been talking about this for a while now - years, if I’m honest - and I guess it’s more than high time I did something about it. It’s been a couple of years since I ran any serious New Year’s Resolutions in the column, but the last time I did the commitment to get something I’d written published by the end of that year was foremost amongst them.

I failed.

That wasn’t the first time either.

For as long as I can remember I’ve had story ideas kicking around in my head, but I’ve never really gotten around to getting them down on paper. Well, my foolish friends, all of that is about to change. Big style.

I’ve been banging on for a while now about the creative process and rather unexpectedly a whole bunch of things have come together. If everything goes to plan there’ll be a regular comics series gracing this very column in the not too distant future, and while some aspects of the project are staying under wraps for a little while longer, I just can’t resist telling you all something about it.

The idea has been with me for a while – ever since the late eighties. Back then the first of Tim Burton’s Batman movies was just about to hit the screens and the whole damn world was Bat Crazy. I discovered the Batman’s comics just before the whole Batmania thing hit, but I did find the character fascinating. There’s a darkness at the very core of the concept that I found (and indeed still find) very intriguing. Unlike so many heroes, I understood the reason he did what he did. Watching your parents bleed to death on the street must provide some pretty strong motivation. Much as I love the character though, there were some things that have never sat quite right with me.

I like the fact that Bats isn’t a power. I like the conceit that, in the end, with proper training and dedication anyone could reach those levels of physical prowess. But much as I love the Caped Crusader for his lack of superpowers and the fact that he can’t just magically solve every problem with a blast from his heat vision, I still think that Brucie has it a little too easy.

I mean, he might not be able to leap tall buildings at a single bound or move faster than a speeding bullet, but Bruce Wayne does have a superpower of sorts – perhaps the only superpower that really exists. He’s got money. Lots and lots of it. Not to mention the undying devotion and support of a whole team of people backing him up.

And I figured that was cheating.

I wanted a hero who had Batman’s need to protect the innocent from the guilty, but who didn’t have his advantages. I wanted to know what would happen if Batman didn’t have a whole family of sidekicks to back him up, a devoted Butler unaccountably trained in combat medicine, and a squidillian bucks to spend on crime busting gadgets.

So I came up with a whole concept based around a guy who lost his family and set out to avenge their deaths and protect the innocent. I created a true working class hero – penniless and alone but determined, only to discover it didn’t work. If I wanted realism, I had to find a plausible way for my hero to attain the stunning levels of physical prowess needed to make his constant two fisted victories possible.

But if you’re going to get that good, surely you have to spend a lit of time training. You can’t just go to Karate class once a week, you have to live it. And you can’t do that if you have to earn a living. And even if you could, you can’t be that kind of one man crusade against crime without help.

So I was stuck.

But I got over it, and I came up with a hero that worked for me.

If I told you exactly how it’d ruin the story I want to tell, so I’m not going into details now, but by way of introduction I can represent the promotional blurb for an earlier incarnation of this story, as presented in the late lamentable Random comic, which long standing readers know all about and the rest of you should be grateful you missed.

Twenty years ago there was a mugging. A young man saw his parents die on a cold, empty street. Now, the city has a new protector. A shadow that haunts the night and will truly make those that would harm others fear the fall of night.

If you think this sounds familiar – you’re wrong.

I’m a decade and a half older now than I was when I wrote that, and the story has evolved somewhat from those Batman tribute roots. I like to think that the concept of Sunset is a good deal more mature than it was back then. For a start, the concept was originally called “Knightfall”, but then they went and used that for a Batman epic. I think “Sunset”, the new name for the story fits the tenor of the character better really, although I would stress that Sunset is the name of the story, and not the character.

The character has a name, but I’m choosing not to tell it to you what it is, because let’s be honest – if you were a shadowy vigilante you wouldn’t advertise your name either. I hope you’re interested enough to stay tuned and follow the adventure as it unfolds. I can promise tragedy, pain, loss, discovery and redemption. Thanks to an introduction made by a work colleague (now I think about it, what other kind of colleague is there…) I think I can also promise you some great art, about which more in the next few weeks.

I’m not laying claim to great writing, but I hope you’ll enjoy it. Whatever you think I hope you’ll let me know, and I hope you’ll enjoy the ride.

See you in four short days.